(One Through Six can be read here. Seven Through Eight here. And Nine here.)
1992, aged ten
My dad has moved back to California, from Minnesota, and I begin to see him every Sunday. We go ice-skating, to the zoo, to the movies, for ice cream. He has moved into an apartment in Parkmerced and one afternoon we sit on his apartment stairs and he tells me he won't be living there alone. It was hard for him to tell me, but I already knew.
My mom, sister and I will move to Texas in the summer, and I can't remember when that was decided, but I do remember being excited. It's not that I wanted to leave California, and all three of us will physically miss it every day we're not there, but every inch of that city is laced with a raw, aching pain. And in a lot more ways than one we just couldn't afford to stay.
The day before we move, I am with my dad. We end the afternoon at a nearby basketball court and through thick tears he tells me he'll move to Texas to be near us, if I want him to. He tells me he would do anything if I wanted him to. I never could bring myself to ask that of him—throughout the next ten years—and not because I'm selfless or because I didn't want him living near me, but because I knew he'd have to break his promise if I asked, and it wasn't something either one of us would recover from.
We spend the next week on the road and arrive in Garland, Texas in the middle of July. It's tough, getting used to this new place, this new home. My sister and I start new schools and make new friends, and we get by. We are strong, the three of us, and we do what we must.
Christmas rolls around and we fly back to California for our first visit (of dozens) with my dad and Elece. She is bubbly and fun and nice, and we like her even though we don't want to. And we forgive him, even though we don't want to.
Because we're young and because we love him.